Personal Perspective:

Psychiatrist's Story (2 minutes, 10 seconds)

I didn't start out without an interest in forensics.
I started out with an interest in neuropsychiatry. And that's where my heart is. But I love
taking care of people that have major mental illness, and really serious mental illness that was
why I went into psychiatry.

The bonus I find here is that I'm not confined by length of stay, there aren't insurance companies
chasing me around and taking up my day. One of the things that brought me to
ADMH is that I
knew that my work day was really well confined. All of the admissions were scheduled. So I knew
consistently that I could leave at 4:30 and go pick my kids up from day care and take care of them
and get on with my evening. I wasn't confined by being on-call for the emergency room, having to
run back into the hospital all the time. So it gave me the flexibility to get on with other parts
of my life and that's why I have stayed.

I also get a lot of benefits, that I don't think I would want to live without: health insurance,
retirement, the property taxes have been really low, our kids go to school here in Tuscaloosa, I drop
them off in the morning and I actually have been really impressed with their education here and the
amenities that they have locally that they can access there have been a lot of things that they can do
for kids and for families.

Tuscaloosa is a real livable city. There's some diversity. There's a university, a lot of college
people, lot of great different kinds of food and ten minutes out I can see pine trees and fishing and
enjoy hunting and canoeing. For people that are really urban and miss music and big concerts, we've
got Birmingham just down the road about an hour and we've got 4 or 5 big cities within 3 or 4 hours:
Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans if you want to go away for the weekend, Jackson, MS and even go up to
Memphis. So if you are a shopping junkie, or you like really exotic food you can always make it over
to one of those places on a weekend. So Tuscaloosa has a lot to offer that way.